Shorn
by GuiltyRed
Summary: This is the first in a series of drabbles. They are each told firstperson POV, and they are quite short. I packed a lot of damage into some of these, though a couple are almost cheerful.
1. Chapter 1

**03**

The people here are so kind.

They smile gently and lead me by the hand, like…I don't remember. A…woman? With a bright smile, and she was so very tall. I only came up to her knees, so she had to be very tall.

Very tall.

I think I made the other people afraid. I don't really know…anymore. But I think that was it.

I don't like to talk. I remember how, I think. I think I do. I just don't like the sound of my voice. It's hollow, like a radio broadcast from very far away.

I think I make myself afraid.

There was someone once, who was not afraid. Someone who put my fear somewhere else, where it couldn't watch me.

Then…it came back.

Into my head.

With a voice like a far away radio broadcast.

Maybe if I let them shave my hair off, the voice will finally stop. Everyone else here had theirs shaved off.

Does that mean they heard the Zero too?


	2. Chapter 2

**04**

Rashid smiles at me as if I were his own son. A passerby might think the same.

Here, all barriers are gone.

Here, there is no status, no false pride, no differences.

I have waited all my life to come here, and it is fitting that my time should be now, at the end of my battles. I am so glad that Rashid and the others chose to come with me. They have been before, they guide me as brothers.

Together we chant the prayers, with a thousand other men who are not strangers within this holy place.

Together we perform the rituals, and I am aware suddenly that many of us were warriors together on a battlefield that happened to be a just one. But for the will of Allah, we could have been serving the wrong cause – it has happened so many times before in the life of the Earth.

And now it is the tenth day, and I have made the sacrifice myself. The meat will serve to feed the poor, while I vow before mankind and Allah that this blood on my hands shall forever be the last.

When the ritual shaving of my head begins, to show the world that I have made my peace and cleansed my soul of killing, I cannot help but weep.

A/N: look up "Hajj" at Wikipedia


	3. Chapter 3

Shorn 1

**01**

Once a soldier, always a soldier. I never hoped for anything else.

I wasn't designed to hope.

The New Earth Militia looks promising. They fill the gap between the militant Guardians of Earth and the equally unstable Colonial Union. They might just keep the two from killing each other, and the rest of humanity with them.

If they had any idea that a former Gundam pilot had joined them, I would be put in the same situation that Zechs found himself in with White Fang, and everything would just as quickly go to hell.

I have forged my documents with a careful eye for detail.

I have received my uniform, and read over the dress code very carefully.

There are a few things I have never used for disguise. It's time for one of them.

The shielded plasma blade hums softly, and I regard my reflection with an ironic smile. Though my hair is not my most recognizable feature, it is the most easily dealt with.

And if I take a couple layers of skin with it, it might not grow back at all.


	4. Chapter 4

**06**

It is nearly time, and I am still not afraid. When does it come, I wonder – the fear?

I have committed all the crimes they named, and more. This is only right, though I wish things could have been different.

I should have followed Treize on the battlefield.

Now I am only an afterthought, one last detail to be dealt with before peace could truly be embraced.

As if these barbarians had any idea how to live in peace.

The door opens, and four men enter. It's crowded in here, but I humor them. They are the last company I shall entertain.

Two stand at ready, rifles aimed at my chest.

The third produces sturdy shears from his case. I watch with no feeling as yard-long clumps of fine blond hair fall like thick ribbons to the floor. The sound of the shears reminds me of a gear malfunction, a slippage in the expected: shunk, shunk, shunk.

When he brings out the razor, I begin to tremble. I tell myself it is at the voice of the priest, reciting the necessary words for a condemned man. But I know at last the answer to my question.

The fear comes now.


	5. Chapter 5

**05**

So much has changed.

I am no longer the boy I once was.

That I am a widower is of no more importance than the fact that I am a killer. They are my past. I have done with grieving.

The tiles are cool beneath my knees. The pale robes pool around me like snowfall.

I had never seen snow before coming to Earth. Not real, wild snow.

Gentle hands guide my head to bow.

Warm oil carries the scent of flowers I do not know by name. For a moment, it washes my hair forward in a soft curtain of black.

The black of space is now my nighttime sky, never again my battlefield. I have turned away from such things, by coming here.

For the first time in my life, my heart is light.

_Blade glides across skin_

_Removing warrior's hair_

_Leaving penitence_

A/N: look up "Vajrayana" at Wikipedia


	6. Chapter 6

**02**

Sunlight fades to twilight, and the dance of color from the stained glass windows fades to blue. Tiny red glass votives hold out against the coming night.

Electric lights slowly brighten, hidden in the alcoves like the breath of God.

I've been here all day.

Half of those votives are mine, in memory of those who were lost. The wars have different names, but to me it's all one big screwup. Humanity attacked itself like an animal in a trap, not caring that it was gnawing away its own life. Or maybe it did care, maybe that was the only way out of a bigger trap.

I don't know.

Turning toward the image of Mother Mary, I ask her to bless the scissors that they might cut away my doubts. My doubts, not my sins. I don't dare ask her to take away my sins so easily.

I wrap the long braid around my fist and pull it down in front of my eyes. It tugs at the back, but that doesn't matter. It has grown unchecked since I was a kid, a scrawny, unwanted, unremembered kid on an unwanted and unremembered colony. We were useful. Not wanted.

None of us were.

I raise the scissors and begin to cut. Now I'm the one gnawing away at myself, sawing at the thick braid with cheap scissors. I grit my teeth against the pulling; the hand wrapped in hair is going numb.

And then, it's done. I look at the long braid in my hand. My hair, uncut since childhood, has been my witness for every moment of my life. More tangible than God, it has been with me through dark times and good.

I lay the braid at Mary's feet. It's the only thing I have to offer.

Moving slowly, reverently, I make my way to the basin of holy water. I cross myself, as I was taught to do so long ago, and take the razor out of my pocket. Dipping the blade into the basin, I lower my head and begin to shave the uneven remnants of hair from my scalp.

I didn't expect to be this calm.

In minutes I am done, the basin fouled with my most recent sins.

There is only one last thing to do now. The gun is heavy in my hand as I take my seat in the confessional.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…"


End file.
